Sunday 13 November – Mooney and the Orchard

Not happy. Not even a little bit. Brian was on fire. No-one else was. ‘Nuff said.

Well, not quite enough (just can’t help myself!). It was a great day – there was a risk that it was going to be too hot, but turned out to be beautiful. Good clean riding fun, with a dry track and no excuses for slipping on the rocks. Brian took a little while to warm up (his attempts at Smartarse Creek early on were mildly embarrassing), but thereafter only put a foot down so he could look back and check just how far behind him we all were.

On the climb up the first hill past the dam Brian was a machine, including a whole sequence of elegant climbs up the little rock steps (on which each of the rest of us simply fell off). By the time we were circling the track to The Orchard, I confess that we derived some delight from the huge slide he got into on the fast run – with our joy only to be dashed as he maintained control and stayed upright (at least he did eat a bit of bush by the time he’d got it back together – pathetic, I know, but we needed some sign of fallibility!).

Andrew turned out to be not a real Newbie as we had been led to believe by Brian (ie, he was fit, generally talented and knew how to ride a mountain bike!), so Brian’s treachery and good fortune continued hand in hand…

Rees, Doug, Richard and Stephe just meandered about behind the legends, with tears in our eyes. And, Stephe broke his bike. Again. Never was much fond of mountain bike riding. Not coming back. Ever.

Richard (who was actually leading on the way home – because, in fact Brian was not a legend the whole time!) spotted a huge goanna on the way down, which promptly sprinted up the nearest tree - which was kinda cute.

Photos (of guess who) are to be found here (although, I’m pleased to say there’s some good other shots as well!). Some highlights (ie not including Brian):